A Blank Slate

Tomorrow is the first day of March, but I'm still in the wintertime purging and organizing mode that overcomes me each year in January. The heavy snows that fell this month have remained on the ground due to the very cold temperatures. The white snowscape has provided much-needed reflected light in the dark rooms of our circa 1846 home. Organizing and keeping things orderly is an ongoing struggle for me, so when bright light pours in our windows, I am cheered and tasks seem lighter than on the dark days we so often experience during the winter. The lake-effect clouds from Lake Erie are a reality here in WNY and when our yard is covered in bright white snow, or we experience the occasional sunny day, my energy soars.

In my studio, there are many small tools, notions, bits and bobs to keep track of. And since I like to make an occasional mixed media collage with found objects, I continually stash orphaned china, metal, glass, paper and textiles. If I don't take the time when I am working on a project to clean up after myself, or when I just drop things off on my work table and walk away, all those little things just pile up. Since I don't have an assistant, it's up to me to put things back in order. Where is my fairy godmother when I need her?

Blank Slate

This morning, as I erased the comments I'd written yesterday from our little blackboard in the kitchen, I started to think about the symbolism of the blank slate that was right there in front of me. In college, I learned about the concept of tabula rasa, (from the Latin phrase  meaning: scraped tablet), which can be traced back to Aristotle; but the philosopher John Locke is the person I remember for writing that the human mind is like a blank slate, that we are born without knowledge until we learn it by sensory or mental experiences. A better explanation than mine can be found here: 

https://www.britannica.com/topic/tabula-rasa

I am not relating the blank slate on our kitchen wall to humankind in this post. Instead I am stretching the philosophical concept a bit to fit my needs. The blank slate signifies to me a couple things. The first is that while blank, the slate has no impact on its own; but, secondly, it offers a new beginning for me. I can write ideas on it, my list of things I need to do, notes to my husband, our menu for the day, draw on it, or leave it blank. Walking past it when it is blank bothers me, so after I erase it in the morning, I always write on it. It might seem a little funny to other people, but it grounds me in a way that is much different than the long "to do" list in my planner.

Right now, March is a blank slate. When I turn the calendar page over tomorrow morning, I will hopefully see the potential that the new month holds. The days are open to me, like a blank slate, to fill as I decide. I want to make each day count . . . to organize, play, rest, reflect, and enjoy the ways I spend my days. It has been a bit of a struggle over the past year to make plans, but hopefully, that can be a part of what happens this March, too. March winds can bring about change and I hope that holds true for the blank slate that hangs on our kitchen wall. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. It is my hope that you and those you love are happy and healthy. Your comments are welcome here on my blog or on Facebook. I will read them and respond. And, as always, until we meet again, may the Lord hold you in the hollow of His hand.

Emmy

Thankful Morning

The morning sun lights up these glorious amaryllis blooms. 

As I walk through the house on this very frosty morning, I'm thankful. Walking from the kitchen, I cast my eyes over to the dining room window where the sun lights up one of my tall amaryllis plants with its huge red blooms. I walk down the hallway to the living room where I am flanked by tables filled with special little gifts I've saved from loved ones, antiques that were handed down to me by my parents and grandparents and some things that I have made with my own two hands. The ice crystals formed on the living room windows remind me of cold mornings on our farm.

Ice crystals on the living room window.
It was 12 degrees this morning!

When I was a little girl, I used to stare out the window over the kitchen sink, with its pattern of ice crystals, to watch for the the little yellow dot to the west that was the school bus approaching from up the road. My father would often look over my shoulder at the snow-covered fields and recite the lines from a poem that he learned as a boy in the one-room school house he attended.

The snow had begun in the gloaming,

And busily all the night

Had been heaping field and highway

With a silence deep and white.

-- Excerpted from 

"The First Snowfall"

by James Russell Lowell

If I close my eyes, I can picture the image of us together at the window and hear his voice. I was safe and warm and loved. That is how I feel this morning and I am thankful. I wrap my hands around my warm coffee cup and consider all that I have in my life for which I am grateful.

If you are interested in reading the poem in its entirety, and about the author, here are a couple sites to look at online. As with any research, I often fall down a rabbit hole, and finding this poem was no exception. It gave me insight into its true meaning and also how my father may have related to it as an adult. What I had always considered in my mind that is full of romantic notions was that it was about the beauty of the snow, but it has much more meaning. Read on, my friends . . . 

https://poets.org/poem/first-snowfall

https://prezi.com/xwxjq1qmlibc/the-first-snowfall/

Back to my amaryllis, or is it amarylli? For more rabbit hole fun, you might want to jump in here to read up on pluralizing a genus name:

https://www.courier-tribune.com/article/20131211/NEWS/312119820

While watching one of my favorite YouTube channels, I noticed the host had cut her amaryllis blooms and placed them in a vase on a window sill. I was fascinated by the image and I jumped down one of those rabbit holes again. I hopped from site to site garnering all kinds of information about amaryllises . . . another way to pluralize the word to take up precious space in my brain. This time, I took the plunge and used the information and (gasp here) I cut the long heavy stalks of my potted and overcrowded amaryllises and put them in vases. From what I read, this will give the cut flowers a longer bloom time than left in the pot, provided I cut them before they have fully opened. A little floral preservative (the kind you get with cut flowers at the grocery store) helps them stay fresh a bit longer. I always have a few packs at the bottom of my kitchen junk drawer.

Some photos of the cut blooms are below. I am glad I stumbled over this information because I can enjoy the vases of flowers throughout the house and I don't need to constantly stake the heavy flower stalks with dowels and pipecleaners. I have given myself permission to cut my own flowers.

These blooms were cut at just the right time.
They have emerged as a spectacular sight.

These were mis-labeled on the box as red.
However, their delicate white with pink flowers are a delightful surprise.

These were partially open when I cut them,
but they've opened up and have looked good for over a week.

Those buds pictured above have fully opened.
Spectacular is the only word I can use to describe them.

I am thankful for the beauty of these flowers and for the memories of my childhood . . . triggered by ice crystals on a window. With well over a foot of snow on the ground and cold temperatures, I am glad I can enjoy winter beauty from inside these walls.  

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. Your comments are welcome here on my blog or on Facebook. I will read them and respond. It is my sincere hope that you and those you love are heathy and safe. And, as always, until we meet again, may the Lord hold you in the hollow of His hand.

Emmy

The Color of the Month . . . RED!

A Valentine's Day wreath I made a few years ago.
I thought it was appropriate for todays' post.
💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞

Go Red for Women®. Today is National Wear Red Day® to call attention to the number one health threat for women: Cardiovascular Disease. One in three women are dying from heart disease and stroke. This is a serious subject and in the times we are living, it isn't always pleasant to read about serious stuff. It is forced on us daily from every direction. And, in keeping with my theme, it ends up making us tense, elevating our heart rate and our blood pressure. So, where am I going with this? Please read on. It gets better. 💗

Here is a link to the American Heart Association where you can read about the steps you can take to help prevent heart disease and hopefully reverse this trend. Click here: goredforwomen.org  Both of my parents had symptoms of cardiovascular disease and lived into their 80's, but not without medicines to keep them going. If they both had earlier intervention, they might have had less severe symptoms and less tragic deaths. Watching someone you love decline due to their health is painful. Hopefully, with knowlege and action on our part, this will be turned around in our nation and in the world. 

We are encouraged to move more, practice deep breathing exercises, watch our diets and stress. It really isn't difficult. Well . . . maybe the stress part is harder because it often comes from without, not from within; and, of course, heredity plays a part in our health. We can't change that. But, in this time of shopping for groceries online, it is easier than ever to avoid the food danger zones at the supermarket. You know which ones I mean. Typically, they are in the last aisle we travel on our way to the checkout: doughnuts, oversized muffins, chips, dips, and ice cream to name a few. If these are on your shopping list, that's okay; but if they are purchased on impulse and not part of your food plan, I think you will agree that's not okay! By shopping for our groceries online, I have found that we have been able to avoid bringing home many of the "bad" choices and adding more fresh veggies and lower fat items to our grocery cart. Yes, it requires planning and even research to find recipes online. But if there can be one positive outcome of staying home day in and day out, it is learning to cook healthier food in healthier ways. Have cakes, pies, cookies and a few other goodies found their way into our menus these last 11 months? Of course. Those foods are special treats and I give myself a pass every once in a while! Every week when the grocery store flier is published online, we scour it for the BOGO's and sale items. We shop together online at two stores. We each work on our own list and then take a coffee break and decide together which things we need and where they are the best price. It takes some time, but it is a whole lot easier, in my opinion, than bundling up, going into the store, looking up and down the long aisles, packing the groceries into the cart, wheeling them over the bumpy snow-packed parking lot, unloading them into the trunk, getting home and unloading them, and so forth. I can shop in my jammies, have someone walk the aisles for me, communicate with me in real time chat about substitutions and all while I am safe in my home. I don't want to go to stores where there are other people who may not be following the CDC guildlines for Covid-19. Until this whole thing is over, and probably for the rest of my life, I will shop online and pick my groceries up curbside. It has been another of the positive outcomes of the pandemic. Since it is still unknown what lasting effects Covid-19 will have on people who have had it, I'd like to avoid it altogether, and that includes protecting my heart from possible damage. If you aren't already shopping for groceries online, I hope you will give it a try. Once in a while there are mistakes, but the stores are eager to make it right and will refund or credit your account. Driving up to a designated parking spot for curbside shopping is a blessing for which I am grateful. And protecting ourselves from Covid-19 exposure, from the possibility of falling on ice or snow and the general inconvenience of grocery shopping, makes it a win for us.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. It is my sincere wish that you and those you love are happy and healthy. As always, your comments are welcome and can be left here on my blog or on facebook. I will read them and respond. And until we meet again, may the Lord hold you in the hollow of His hand. 

💗

Emmy

Let it Snow!

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Wheat Stubble in Winter
Photo source: USDA NRCS, Public Domain 

It is the third week of January and there is a deep cover of snow on the ground. We haven't had much snowfall this winter and we need this blanket to protect the earth while it sleeps. Winter wheat, which was one of the crops grown on my family's cash crop farm, needs to be protected from icy winds and extremely cold temperatures. Planted in late summer, it starts to grow in the fall and by November, it looks like a field of green grass. In the spring, it begins to grow again and becomes a gorgeous field of gold that by summer takes my breath away. The depth of color and texture of a mature wheat field stops me in my tracks every time I see one and now, in the dead of winter with 20-degree days and windchills in the teens, by just thinking about it, I am transported to a place where gold surrounds me and the earthy smell of freshly harvested grain is in the air. 

Golden rows of wheat straw create a patchwork image in a field that was once farmed by my family.

When I close my eyes, I can envision the barn on our farm where the wheat was stored. Piled high after the harvest, the mountains of fresh little beads of wheat kernels were a great place for a farm kid to play, catch grasshoppers and chew on the delicate little wheatberries that were warmed by the sun just a few hours ago. The air in the barn was cool and in the late afternoon, the sun would cast shadows on the barn floor. Ribbons of ruby light would weave their way through the weathered boards to create a world suitable for the imagination of a little girl. The wheat crop not only gave us piles of wheat, tons of it if you read my father's diaries where he recorded every year's harvest; but also gave us glowing rows of golden straw as it was laid down from behind the John Deere combine in a pattern that has inspired many a patchwork quilt. As a child, fairy tales such as "Rumpelstiltskin" held my interest, although there was a rather sinister plot in that particular story. But, nevertheless, spinning straw into gold sounded quite wonderful to me. The wheat that found its way into my pockets and cuffs while climbing around in the barn, came spilling out onto my bedroom floor at night when I undressed. The sound was a sweet reminder of hours whiled away in the long afternoon of a summer day.

A view of one of the big barns on my family's farm with our 1860's Greek Revival house and horse barn in the distance.

The wheat and straw that we harvested on our farm were grown as cash crops. The wheat was bagged and sold to growers as seed wheat and the straw was baled and stored in the mows in our barns. It was sold to buyers who sent huge flat bed trucks to our farm and was carried away 20 tons at a time. Some of it made its way to the racetracks where, I was told, the horses were very fussy and they liked our straw. 

My dress form adorned with her glittery silver wreath. 

In January, it's nice to remember the sights, sounds, and smells of summer, but it is also important to me to give homage to the quiet slumber of the earth. In our home, I gravitate to colors that reflect the winter landscape in white and silver and for those infrequent days when we are relieved of our lake-effect cloud cover, I add some blue. It is like taking in a deep breath and slowly exhaling while it snows and we quietly wait for winter to wake from it's long sleep.

I made this wreath for our front porch last winter. Silver, white and blue is one of my a favorite color combinations for this time of year.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I hope it may have evoked some memories for you. As always, your questions and comments are welcome. You can post them here on my blog or on Facebook. I will read each one and respond. It is my sincere wish that you and those you love are healthy, happy and safe. And, until we meet again, may the Lord hold you in the hollow of His hand. 

Emmy

Go Bills! 🏈

PRAYING FOR A WIN . . .

"Please, God. Let my team win. Please, please, please . . .", is one of the prayers being sent skyward this week by football fans across America. These prayers remind me of what it was like when I was a little girl and I would pray for God's help when I had done something I would be punished for . . . if my parents found out about it. I would pray, "Please, God! Don't let Mommy see that I broke her vase," or when I was a teen, "please don't let Daddy notice I used all the gas in the tank," when I was supposed to just drive the car to school and back home . . . not go joy-riding after school. I'd bargain with God and ask Him to let me off the hook one more time. I'd promise to behave and not break more vases or break the rules for using the car. It's the post-season playoffs for the AFC (American Football Conference) and the NFC (National Football Conference) in the NFL (National Football League). If this is news to you, then you must not watch your local news or read the feed on your internet news and social media . . . or live in Western New York, the home of the Buffalo Bills football games! After the year that just ended, this might be the sole thing in many Americans' lives that gives them joy . . . and heartbreak. But at least it is something familiar to them and not something that creates fear and confusion as they try to navigate their way in this pandemic-ravaged world. Praying is part of being a fan. Any fan will tell you they have sat on the edge of their seat, hands folded and head bowed at times during a football game. With the exception of a few lucky fans, the rest of the football-viewing world watched the games this season on TV. What a huge change this has been for them, the teams, the networks, the advertisers, the restaurants and other retail establisments that count on the revenue from the football season. But, that topic is for another blogger to sort out. I will focus this post on faith.

When it comes to faith, football and fans, there is an obvious (to me) connection, a fan believes in his/her team and has faith in them even when disappointed. Every team has fans and when they are let down they cry, get mad, walk away, yell at the TV . . . and in the end, they stay loyal to their team. They come back to the stadium or the TV again and again. They donate to the team's local charity drives. They are faithful. They will defend the team and take anyone to task who speaks negatively of them. They don't jump ship and run off to cheer for another team. That's not what a dyed-in-the-wool fan will do. It's not a whole lot different than my relationship with God. I thank him every morning for the gift of a new day. I ask for his guidance as I maneuver my way through it. There will be circumstances that require me to make decisions based on what I know, or based on some research on my part, or based on faith. I thank him for the big and the little things and likewise, I pray for the big and little things. I look for ways to support His work. And when I'm disappointed, I try to remember that all prayers aren't answered in my time. I need to be patient. Prayers are answered in God's time . . . like the lyric in a Garth Brooks song, "some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers". 

Even if you aren't a football fan, you've probably found yourself being thankful in 2020 for things you'd never have expected you'd even be thinking about. How many times did you go to the store or online and give out a squeal of joy or do a little happy dance when you actually found toilet paper to put in your shopping cart? Praying for disinfectant wipes . . . at least one canister . . . still isn't all that unusual. And, of course, the prayers that are lifted daily for those whose loved ones have been sick or taken by Covid-19 and for those working in the trenches of our medical facilities. Prayers, big and small are part of my daily life. When I can't find something, I usually go straight to God and ask him to lead my hands to whatever it is that is lost. And everytime . . . yes . . . everytime . . . He answers my prayer and I find it. Prayer and thanks are a big part of my days and part of many other people's across the globe. 

So when I sit on the edge of my seat this weekend and watch the playoff games, I'll be one of those praying fans. It feels a little funny to me to pray for a football game, but I will be praying and I will feel just like I did when I was a little kid, except I won't be bargaining with God the way I did then. I won't promise to be a better fan because I am already faithful. And I'll accept the outcome . . . hopefully the one I will be praying for. Now, if I could be as fanatical about my faith . . . but thinking about it is a start. 

Thank you for taking the time from your day to read this post. As always, your questions and comments are welcome. You can leave them here on my blog or on Facebook. I will read them and I will respond. It is my sincere wish that you and those you love are healthy and safe. And . . . for my football congregation . . . Go Bills! 🏈

Emmy

Picking the Tree

It is the first week of the new year and for the first time ever my husband and I are both ready to start taking down our Christmas decorations early. As it is, we didn’t really get them put up until Christmas Eve. And, it wasn’t like we didn’t have time this year to decorate. No. That’s not why we didn’t get the house decorated early . . . like we thought we would. I mean, with being sequestered in our home and keeping ourselves isolated from the rest of humankind, we thought it was a sure thing that we’d be sitting by the fire in our warm robes all of December, especially this Christmas of all Christmases! But human nature is a funny thing. We couldn’t seem to get off the dime. Hauling the bins of decorations down the stairs and putting up the tree and getting the lights on it seemed like a gargantuan task. By waiting until the week before Christmas, it was a lot easier to put up just the necessary and most precious decorations. I think our psyches needed simplicity and that’s what they got. Sparsely decorated mantels, a simply decorated tree in traditional red, gold and silver . . . without the lush garlands and over-the-top floral picks I am so prone to poke in every bare spot I can find in the tree.

So, just a couple days after Christmas, I was ready to take down all the decorations. I didn’t know how my husband would feel about it because he absolutely loves all things Christmas. In fact, he is one of the jolly elf’s ambassadors. He has been Santa on many occasions for almost 40 years. When I really had enough of our decorated house, I asked him how he was feeling about still having the decorations up and to my surprise, he said he was also ready to take them down because Christmas this year hadn’t had the same feeling as it usually does. 

As I started taking ornaments off the tree, I remembered a quaint expression my mother always used when it was time to take down the Christmas tree. She called it “picking the tree,” and when I was a kid, it always made me giggle. As I picked the tree this week, I thought a lot about my mother. Like all of us, her Christmases weren’t always the same and there were some holiday seasons that were less festive because of events that happened that year. She and my father both lived during the pandemic of 1918 and two world wars that took the lives of friends and neighbors, the Great Depression, family tragedies and personal things she never disclosed to me. 

As I get older, I feel more of a kindred spirit with my mother. As different as I used to think we were, I have discovered we were more alike than I ever realized. As we begin a new year filled with uncertainties, I hope I can muster up the fortitude my mother had. She lived a life full of personal challenges and triumphed beyond even her own expectations by sheer determination. From being so small when she was born that she wasn’t expected to live, to being unable to sit up or walk until she was 4 years old and so many other things she endured. (I wrote about my mother in a previous post. You can read it here: https://studioemmy.blogspot.com/2018/05/as-mothers-day-approaches.html?m=0) I hope we can all do likewise and come through this difficult time with an appreciation for each other and what is truly important in our lives . . . to survive in ways we never would have imagined we’d find necessary in our lifetime. I wrote about “hope” last week and today, my closing thoughts are about “fortitude”. Let’s all strive to be strong and have courage.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. It is my hope that you and those you love are healthy and happy. Your questions and comments are always welcome here on my blog or on Facebook. I do read them and will respond. And until we meet again, may the Lord bless you and hold you in the hollow of His hand. 

Emmy

2020 . . . and Hope

Two of the many masks I've made during the pandemic. I gave them to family, friends and instacart delivery reps who were willing to shop for us. When elastic became scarce,  I used ribbons for the ties. There's a pocket in the masks I make where you can insert a filter. Come 2021, I'll be making many more of these.
 They'll be part of our lives for many more months.

As I reflect back on the year that just passed and think about the one we are about to begin, my confidence is a bit shaken. My beliefs have been tested. My perceptions have been altered. The global community is connected in a way that has brought us closer, but keeps us farther apart.

When I think of the hope that a new year promises, it doesn’t mean the same to me today as it did a year ago. But, perhaps that is part of living during a pandemic. I need to fine tune what hope means to me. Three words that come to mind as I consider this are acceptance, appreciation and anticipation. I wasn’t going for alliteration, it just happened to turn out that way. And maybe that is part of the shift that I need to make in my thoughts on hope. Perhaps it is a shift to a new understanding and that sometimes . . . things just turn out that way.

If I accept the situation I am now living in, then I can move forward while living in isolation. One of my doctors asked me how I was spending my time, where I was going, if I was always wearing a mask and practicing social distancing. My response was that going to doctor appointments was the highlight of my social life. Otherwise, I have remained home except for necessary trips to a few other places and talking to the curbside staff from a distance while they load my groceries in the hatchback of my SUV. And, yes, I always wear a mask. I keep one at the front door so it is handy in case the doorbell rings . . . which it rarely does! My doctor urged me to stay connected and involved. He said, “that is what Facebook is for”. I agree. Listening to podcasts, watching YouTube videos and joining Facebook groups who meet weekly in real time have helped fill my need for social interaction. Learning new things has kept my mind occupied, and like just like about everyone else I know, experimenting in the kitchen has expanded my recipe file. Good old fashioned phone calls may be passe in this day and age of texting, but I love talking on the phone. Checking in with someone and hearing their voice means more to me than reading a few sentences punctuated with emojis and abbreviations that I need to look up on Google! Then there is Zoom. Where would we be without it? I have enjoyed seeing friends and relatives on Zoom and am thankful for the technology that keeps me connected to others. This is how we live our lives now. This is acceptance.

Getting organized is a January tradition that many of us, including myself, partake in every year. Without fail, I make lists, set goals, empty cupboards and drawers, clean closets, and purge my belongings that no longer serve me. Purging is the hard part. I get attached to my stuff and have a hard time letting it go. But going through the exercise of organizing gives me an appreciation of the things I have. Many of them are associated with memories of the people who gave them to me or of the places I found them when shopping in a little boutique while on vacation. This is appreciation.

This is the first blog post I have made since last mid-March. Every time I sat down over the last nine months to compose a post, I didn’t feel like I had anything to write that was as important as what each of you, my dear readers, were going through in your own lives. Many days seemed to just morph into the next, and that was a recurring theme that I kept seeing on social media and on TV ads. But this is the end of 2020 and we are all about to enter into a new year . . . one of hope . . . however you define it. This is anticipation.

It is my prayer that you and those you love are healthy, happy and safe. And until we meet again, may the Lord bless you and hold you in the hollow of His hand.

Emmy